Coping
by Senka Hitomi
Summary: From day to day, she's coping. NejiTen, oneshot for now, possibly expanding. Spoilers for 614.


_Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto._

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It was easy enough to avoid the Hyuuga compound, if you put in sufficient effort. Sure, it took some adjustment – Tenten was used to passing by it every morning on her way to the training ground, sometimes pausing outside the gate on the occasions when her training partner was running particularly late. She would pace outside the stone enclosure, tracing the miniscule cracks in the wall, marveling at the idea of so many people, trapped in one place, constantly surrounded by relatives. As a girl who had been orphaned early in her life, it was hard for Tenten to imagine even the most basic of family units, much less such a large collective of cousins and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and children. Just thinking about it made her head spin. In the end, those thoughts always led her to one conclusion: family was an enigma she would never quite understand.

But those days were long gone. Now, those formidable walls held other reminders, ones Tenten regularly relived even without their help. The path wasn't necessary anyway. Missions had been flying through the Hokage's office ever since they returned from the war, and Tenten didn't have time to make use of Training Ground 15 anymore. It hadn't begun as a conscious effort to avoid the place – initially, she had just been so busy that it had become an impossibility. But now, every crater, every scarred target, every place where the grass had been ripped from the ground was a reminder of things best left to the past.

Tenten felt old now, so much older than she could ever have imagined. Lee had been placed in charge of a Genin team, all of whom complained as bitterly about him as her team had once complained about Gai-sensei. (Well… at least _she_ had.) Lee often asked her to help supervise training when she returned from missions, and she was always glad to do so. She liked their team: the boisterous and brash Yori, with his ambition of one day running the intelligence division; the sweet and thoughtful Juro, whose only goal was to protect his teammates, no matter what; the serious and driven Kazuko, who reminded Tenten for all the world of another young genius she'd had the pleasure to know.

Gai-sensei had been sent on special diplomatic missions; while the ninja alliance had been effective while it lasted, Madara had been right about one thing – keeping relations cordial was no simple task. Tenten often just missed seeing her old teacher, leaving on a mission just as he was returning from Kiri or Iwa. It was an unfortunate situation, but she often received long-winded postcards from him, spouting about the power of youth and how well negotiations were going. It made her smile every time she received a card in his sprawling handwriting, even if it was only a brief message to say hello.

Tenten, meanwhile, had taken on every possible mission, spending as little time as she could in the village.

And it had become easy to avoid the Hyuuga compound…

…some days.

"I beg your pardon?"

Shizune slid the envelope across the desk, tapping the name on the outside. "To be delivered to Lord Hiashi Hyuuga, as quickly as you can manage."

Tenten gave her a look that clearly said 'I'm a Chunin and you're sending me on _what kind _of mission?'

Shizune let out a sigh.

"I know it's a little below your skill level, but we're all swamped here in the office. With Naruto learning the administrative side of things, it's been…" She grimaced. "… chaotic, to say the least."

"Is that really all?"

"For now." Shizune said. She gave her a kind smile, one that spoke of sympathy more than anything else. "You've been working hard, Tenten. Five missions outside of the border in the past month… you ought to relax at least a little."

Tenten took the envelope, clasping the paper tightly enough to disguise the way her hands had suddenly begun to shake. She tried to return the smile, but it faltered slightly.

"I'll take care of it." She turned and found the door before Shizune had a chance to respond, trailing down the stairs and out into the village.

It was quiet as she shut the door behind her. Most of the village's inhabitants were busy with other things: young shinobi were in classes at the Academy, older ones were away on missions; a few of the townspeople milled about the streets, but most stayed in their houses – the effects of the war still resonated, and people held their families as close as possible these days. Tenten took the paths that she knew would be the least crowded. As she walked, she examined the letter in her hands, turning it over and over, as if that would give some hint of its contents, and why _she _of all people had been chosen to deliver it. Her previous meetings with Hiashi had been few and far between.

The most recent was one she didn't care to recall.

Still, it was her duty as a shinobi to fulfill any mission assigned her, and thus she found herself in a familiar place, standing outside those imposing gates, her fingers hovering near the bell that would announce her entrance. She hesitated for a moment before she rang it.

A young man with startling grey eyes and a freckled face opened the gate, his gaze suspicious. Tenten didn't recognize him, but then again, she had no reason to now.

"M—" Her voice caught, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. "Message for Lord Hyuuga."

She expected the young man to take one look at her, snatch the letter from her hand, and slam the gate closed in front of her. Being well acquainted with the Hyuuga clan and their insular prejudices, it would not have surprised her one bit.

Instead, however, he gazed at her assessingly, gave a frown of confusion and held up a hand.

"One moment."

He disappeared from the gate, but he didn't close it back. Tenten could hear a conversation just beyond the gate, someone speaking in a hushed, but animated tone. The response was short and too quiet for her to make any sense of it.

The freckled head reappeared. His confusion appeared to have dissipated.

"Please, enter."

The gate opened on a spacious courtyard, and Tenten had to consciously think to close her mouth to keep from gaping. Perfectly manicured grass stretched from one side of the compound to the other, and the buildings were an elaborate construction of marble and wood, giving the impression of more of a temple than a residence. It certainly put her own tiny apartment to shame.

Forcibly tearing her eyes away, Tenten turned back to the young gatekeeper. "Where do I need to go?"

He gestured to the enormous set of doors before her. "Hiashi-sama is expecting you in the meeting room straight ahead."

Tenten nodded her thanks and made her way up the stairs, but she stopped at the second to last step, a strange feeling overcoming her. She turned back to find the young man still watching her, his face a mask of curiosity and reverence. He flushed noticeably when Tenten caught his gaze.

"Was there something else?" She inquired.

The young man shook his head vigorously, struggling to recover his composure. "No, no, no. Sorry, I just… you… uh…"

He cast another nervous glance at her before averting his gaze and bowing.

"Sorry!" With that, he scampered off.

Tenten watched him go, more than slightly confused. She wasn't used to people getting flustered around her – she wasn't particularly intimidating when she wasn't trying to be, and she certainly wasn't pretty enough to cause that kind of reaction. Still uncertain, she finished her climb up the steps, removing her shoes before she entered the residence.

The door opened on a large space, empty aside from a couple of potted plants and a layer of tatami that covered the hardwood floor. Sunlight shone through screens of rice paper, illuminating carefully crafted designs, intricate in their details. Tenten might have spent the rest of the afternoon admiring them, but a voice interrupted her.

"You bear a message?"

Tenten jumped, suddenly aware of the figure kneeling at the other end of the room. She scrambled to recover her sense of propriety. She hastened to kneel in front of him, bowing her head as she held out the letter.

"Hiashi-sama."

He took the letter carefully, reading the neat script on the outside and examining the paper in much the same way Tenten had done only minutes before. As he flipped it over, Tenten expected to be dismissed at any moment.

But then he set the letter aside.

"Your name… is Tenten, is it not?"

Her head snapped up.

"Yes, Hiashi-sama."

"Hn." He nodded slowly, and gesture so much recalled his nephew that Tenten felt her eyes begin to sting.

_Not now._

"You…" he cleared his throat again. "You were on the same team as my nephew then."

"Yes, Hiashi-sama." Tenten couldn't stop her voice from cracking slightly, and she bent her head, reflexively biting the inside of her cheek.

Of course Lord Hiashi knew who she was. Even if he had not been aware when they were all genin, he certainly knew of her after the Chuunin exams. And if that hadn't solidified things in his mind, well… it would have been hard to forget given recent events.

It would have been hard to forget her, the girl who stayed solid as a statue, until the eulogy was almost over. Who, when she had almost made it to the very end, had been reduced to a blubbering wreck in front of practically the entire village. The girl who had only been saved by the foresight of her sensei, who had been quick enough to pull her away from the funeral in time for the majority of her blood-curdling cries to be released away from the crowd.

She bowed her head even more deeply.

"Yes, sir." She repeated.

"I have something to give you."

Tenten's head shot up for the second time, to find an outstretched hand hovering in front of her. Tentatively, she took it, allowing the head of the Hyuuga clan to help her rise to her feet.

She followed him outside and around to the back of the complex. Along the way, they passed several other members of the clan, all of whom regarded her with the same mixture of wonder and awe as the young man at the gate. Tenten was beginning to wonder what their problem was when Hiashi stopped outside of a door. He slid it open and gestured for her to follow.

The room into which he had led her was actually a series of rooms – the front one appeared to be a room for entertaining, of sorts, though it looked as though it had barely been used. Hiashi indicated for her to wait, ducking into a side room before returning a few moments later with a package in his hands. He moved to hand it to her, then hesitated, smoothing down the ribbon in an uncharacteristically hesitant gesture.

"I will… be the first to admit that I did not always treat Neji with the respect that he deserved. It took me far too long to acknowledge his aptitude. I cannot help but feel that my dear brother would admonish me for it, were he still with us. I came too late to the realization that Neji was an invaluable part of the Hyuuga clan. He was becoming like a son to me, the way he should have been from the start…"

He trailed off. Tenten, who until now had been staring at his hands, now mustered up the courage to look at his face. She immediately realized she shouldn't have.

The head of the Hyuuga clan, the most stoic man Tenten knew, had tears streaming down his face. He made no pretense to hide them or wipe them away; he just let them flow in waves down his cheeks.

The lump in Tenten's throat grew from the size of a golf ball to an orange within seconds.

"He gave a gift to our family… to _me_," Hiashi amended, "that can never be repaid. I struggle every day between grief and overwhelming gratitude for what he did."

Wiping away a few of the tears, he gestured to the rooms around them.

"These were Neji's. He barely got any use out of them before…" He swallowed. "…before the war. For a while, we couldn't go through them. Hinata tried, as did I, but…"

He held out the box in his hands, unable to continue the previous statement. "My daughter, Hanabi, found this earlier this week. Hinata has tried to contact you, but you proved… difficult to reach."

Tenten grimaced at the statement. It was likely not for lack of effort on Hinata's part that they had not been able to find her. More than anyone else, Tenten had been avoiding Hinata lately, because the reminder was still too fresh. There was too much that reminded her of Neji, and she had been doing so well for these past few weeks, keeping herself under control. Seeing Hinata would simply have thrown her back into the despair of her first few days back in Konoha.

Hiashi held the gift out more insistently, and watched as Tenten took it, slowly undoing the ribbon and peeling back the carefully wrapped paper.

"It was addressed to you. I knew… Neji would have wanted you to have it, whatever it is. He…"

Tenten paused in the process, waiting for Hiashi's next few words.

_He what?_

"He thought very highly of you, you know. I… I rarely heard Neji praise anyone, but when he did, it was invariably you. I believe you… you really meant quite a bit to my nephew."

Tenten went back to unwrapping the package, anything to distract from the stinging sensation that once again prickled her eyes. Beneath the paper was a plain, black box.

The lid was sealed on tightly, and she had to exert serious effort to remove it. When she did, something slender and silvery shot out of the box, clattering onto the floor with a metallic tinkle and a thud. She bent over to pick it up, but she stopped short when she saw what it was.

"_Wow… it's so beautiful!"_

_Neji leaned over her shoulder, examining the item at which she was gazing with such longing. _

"_That?"_

_The pendant was simple – it was an opalescent stone, with leaves etched into it, creating a subtle texture on the surface. The stone was suspended on a thin silver chain. _

"_Mhm." She grinned, admiring it for a moment more before she sighed and looked away, continuing on the path toward Konoha. _

"_Why don't you buy it then?" It seemed a simple question to Neji. It wasn't as though she couldn't afford it – in fact, they had just completed a mission that had a very lucrative payoff._

_Tenten shook her head, laughing lightly. "I'm a shinobi, Neji. What use would I ever have for something like that? It's pretty, but… that should be worn by a girl who has somewhere to wear it to."_

_The sadness in her voice gave Neji pause._

"_You say that as though you regret the life you have chosen."_

_Tenten rounded on him so quickly it made his head spin. _

"_What?! No, of course not! Neji, I chose this. I don't regret it for a second, I just…" She gestured back at the display. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be normal. To get to wear things like that, just because._

"_But I don't regret it for a second."_

Tenten picked it up gingerly, turning the stone over in her hands. It was exactly as lovely as she remembered.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like." Hiashi bowed gently. His eyes had dried, but Tenten still saw the lines of sorrow that had etched themselves into his face.

"Can I…" Tenten stammered, gesturing wordlessly at the room around her, and Hiashi nodded, backing toward the door.

"I'll leave you alone."

The door closed back quietly, but Tenten had already almost forgotten that he had been there to begin with. She was too focused on the pendant in her hands.

Why had he… _when _had he…?

Even now, she could imagine how it would play out.

"_Tenten."_

_She would look over at him. They would be walking back after a team dinner, or just after training, the way they always did. _

"_What is it, Neji?"_

_And he would say nothing for a while, which wasn't unusual, but this silence would stretch until she could bear it no more, and she would poke him in the arm._

"_Neji-kuuuuuuun."_

_He would grimace, because she knew exactly how much he hated that and she would grin and poke his arm again._

"_C'mon, spill."_

_Then he would stop in the middle of the road, and it would take her a few moments to realize that he had, before she would slow down and turn around._

"_This must be serious." She would tease. _

_His face would contort subtly, the smallest trace of a frown etched in the faint lines around his eyes, his wonderful eyes. _

_And Tenten would move back to stand next to him. _

"_Is everything okay?"_

_He would fish around in his pocket for a moment, and then produce the box, shoving it into her grasp before she had a chance to protest. She would look at him quizzically, but open it anyway, too impatient to wait. _

_When it fell into her hand, she would gasp._

"_Neji…"_

"_I know you said you wouldn't have any use for it, but…" And he would stop, because he was good at gift-giving, but not the explanations that came along with it. _

"_Oh, Neji…"_

_And she would try to bite back a smile, and hold it out to him to fasten the clasp for her. And he would do so with his typical elegant precision. And she would try not to grin while he stood there looking consternated, until she couldn't control the impulse. She would throw her arms around him and he would stiffen at the sudden contact, but she would keep hugging him anyway. _

"_Thank you, Neji."_

_And he would try not to, but he would smile because he couldn't help it. _

Tenten walked through the rooms, observing – most were bare, probably used for training and meditation. She wasn't surprised; though she had never before visited Neji's residence, she couldn't imagine him having a room that was anything less than immaculate.

In the very back, she found his bedroom. There was a wardrobe, a dresser with some odds and ends, and a bed, but precious little else. She first moved to the dresser. There were a few notes, training reminders and appointments, scripted neatly in his curving hand. She had to turn away to avoid splattering teardrops on the paper. Beyond that, two pictures rested in frames: one she recognized as Neji's late father, who looked startlingly like his twin; it was the other photograph, however, that gave her pause.

She knew immediately when the photograph had been taken. Neji's promotion to Jounin rank had come as a surprise to no one; when he'd made the announcement to his teammates, they'd immediately set to planning. Neji had been flustered by the attention, but Tenten could tell he was pleased when they finally sprung the surprise dinner on him. Lee had bought a cake, and Gai-sensei had reserved a table at the fanciest restaurant in the Village; Tenten had been responsible for tricking Neji into coming to the restaurant in the first place.

The photograph itself was one Tenten didn't remember. It must have been taken when she was too absorbed in conversation to notice. In the picture, she was leaned forward, a half-smile curving her face as she held out the gift she'd gotten. Neji, for his part, was not even looking at the gift.

He was staring straight at her, with a genuine smile on his face.

Tenten's hands shook as she put the frame back. She couldn't keep a few tears away from the glass.

The bed had been neatly made, likely done the morning before he left. Her fingers traced the lines of the comforter, imagining where his fingers had been only a short while ago. Gently, she lowered her head down – there, emanating from the sheets were just the faintest tinges of familiarity, that smell that belonged wholly and solely to him. She curled into it, wishing that she could soak it into her skin and just keep it there, though she knew that even as she reveled in it, it was slipping away from her. She clutched the necklace close to her chest, tracing the designs in the stone.

"Oh, Neji… I miss you."

In the silence, as the tears fell freely, soaking the sheet, she wondered how long he would haunt her. If it would _ever_ stop. These past few months, she'd gotten so much better, every day fighting with new strength to shake off the grief that could have so easily weighed her down. But now, even now, he shadowed her, with his buried affections and his quiet kindnesses, the steadfast soldier, the best man she knew, her best friend.

And the ghost that would follow her always.

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_A/N: Long story short? I couldn't keep myself away from NejiTen, even if I tried. _

_I wrote this originally as a one-shot, but I'm thinking about expanding it into a series. Thoughts?_

_Also, if anyone is interested, I've written a short piece (read: rant) on why I was dissatisfied with Neji's death, as an author. (Aside from the obvious reasons.) If anyone is interested in reading it, and has something to say about it, you can find the piece on my deviantART account (SenkaHitomi), under the journal entry "The dreaded 614". _

_Leave your thoughts in a review, if you please. Happy holidays, everyone!_

_- Senka_


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